Computers are very useful, if not necessary, tools involving people in society. Computers communicate information to human users through a variety of senses, including the visual sense wherein information is displayed on a computer display. Computers communicate a significant portion of the communicated information visually.
Tens of millions of people in the world have significant vision impairment. Computer users having vision impairment are disadvantaged in their use of computers. As an indication of the significance of this disadvantage, some countries such as United States require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with visual disabilities.
Conventional computers are difficult to use by people with a visual impairment. For example, the display devices do not allow the user to readily increase the size of displayed text/and or graphic information to allow people with visual impairment to readily perceive the information. Even users without visual impairment have a need to increase the size of displayed information when the information is very small, or not clear at its current size of display.
In some applications, the size of a region or area of the display of information is increased. The region is defined in terms of space, and/or physical distance. Examples of a region are a one-inch radius circle or a 1″ square. The increased size effectively “magnifies” the region. The magnified information is displayed in a window that typically overlays the non-magnified information. Conventionally, the window is centered over the portion of region information that is magnified. In some embodiments, the region is selected or identified from a cursor position on the display, the position being directed or controlled by a pointing device. Figuratively speaking, a centered window that magnifies the underlying information acts as a magnifying glass. At higher magnifications, only a fragment of a sentence, or worse, fragments of several sentences are enlarged at once. As a result, the user must scroll, such as by moving the cursor, to follow the sentence to its conclusion. Scrolling slows the process of reading the information. Scrolling also introduces the risk that reading comprehension is reduced by distractions by information from sentences that surround the sentence of information that is of interest to the user, and by the distraction of having to operate the scrolling function.